


dinner at my place

by manfred_stone



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: A Nice Dinner, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Corruption, Hermann saves his Boyfriend, Kaiju, Love Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, Newt is in Love, Newt's slow descent into his personal hell, POV Hermann Gottlieb, POV Newton Geiszler, Recovery, The Precursors are Assholes, and it hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-04-26 12:52:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14402517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manfred_stone/pseuds/manfred_stone
Summary: An introspective summary of Newton's fall and Hermann's unreasonable hopes.





	1. a stranger in his own head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newton's not alright, yet all he wants is a nice dinner with his favourite mathematician.

After his ( and humanity’s ) first drift with a kaiju brain, Newton feels different.

A weird pressure in his skull accompanies him everywhere he goes, a loyal headache that has him swallowing pills in order to get rid of it.  
He pushes through it, drifting again with another kaiju, this time partnered by Hermann and the drift going easier onto his poor hyper stimulated brain. They win the war, win against the kaiju thanks to his and Hermann’s work, along with the sacrifice of the brave jaeger pilots. All they do for a week or two is to celebrate that victory, and maybe Newton loses himself a bit too much in the parties and ceremonies, but he can't be blamed because he doesn't want to think about what he’d do after the war. With everything solved, or almost, Dr. Newton Geiszler isn't as needed as he’d been in the years before and he is aware of it, he just doesn't want to think about it, shoving that thought in the back of his mind only to have it pop back up like a spring.

Eventually, the hype for the big victory fades and everyone is left into a routine that doesn't seem as useful and urgent as it used to. It's weird to see everyone settle back into it and have no apparent problem when Newton can barely close an eye without seeing fluorescent flashes of angry eyes and sharp teeth ready to dig into his flesh. He doesn't tell anyone about it, because it's stupid to worry about the kaiju when he knows they all died and can't harm him anymore. He supposes other people who’ve seen worse than he could ever imagine have even worse nightmares than his and still manage to keep them to themselves.

His skin is growing a little paler from the lack of sleep, and his eating habits start to become even spottier than what they already were. Few question his health, but when they do, he shrugs it off, says he's _fine_. And this is not the cliché _he said he was fine, but he was not_ because Newt knows he's not okay, and he knows he needs to find a solution to all of this soon, but he doesn't go seeking for help.  
There's a problem, sure, there is one, but he can deal with it himself, right? It might be thougher, it might take more time, but he can do it by himself, without having to bother Hermann about it.

He sees the dark circles under his colleague's eyes fade a little bit, and his troubled walking even seems a little more energetic, or at least, he looks happier than what Newt has seen him in years.  
He's glad to see him like that.

He doesn't want to scare him away, or just to make him worry by calling him at three in the morning, when he wakes in a bath of cold sweat that he sometimes mistakes for kaiju blue. He doesn't know that exactly in the same moment Hermann is trying to regain his breath because of exactly the same nightmare Newton had. He counts the minutes between the sunrises, counts the times he picks up the phone only to slam it back into place, counts the shadows in his mirror and sighs because they’re not real, nothing feels real anymore.

Maybe it’s the sleepless nights, or maybe it’s the constant worry that now that they don’t need to work together anymore, Hermann will walk out of those reinforced iron doors and never return, either way, Newton feels in need of change.  
What does he need to change? He needs to change the way he sees his colleague, perhaps, he needs to stop those weird thoughts he has about asking him out on a date, because that wouldn’t only make him sound dumb but dumb and in love, which he is, but doesn’t really want to admit it to himself because it would mean he’s hopelessly, one-sidedly in love with his lab partner.  
He feels the slightest comfort at the fantasies he has before falling into nightmares: to calm himself down he imagines himself between Hermann’s arms, his slender fingers lazily tracing the outlines of his tattoos, he presses his lips to the pillow and thinks of Hermann’s pale neck, a canvas waiting for him to be covered in marks.  
Okay, sometimes he goes overboard with his bedtime wonders, but a man has certain needs, and he surely can’t be blamed for thinking that way of Hermann when he was so exquisitely beautiful.  
Okay, he is hopelessly, inevitably in love with him.

The Hermann he thinks about, though, is not real.  
No one is there to hold him in those dark nights, and sometimes it gets hard to even slow down his thoughts. Sometimes he doesn’t even recognise his thoughts, and it’s not only weird but alarming to feel like a stranger in his own head.

It gets worse as time passes, and it’s getting more difficult to hide it from everyone, Hermann, before he can find a solution to whatever is troubling him, whatever has his brain running even faster than it’d ever had. He feels like his head could catch on fire any second. The sleepless nights squirming in his bed turn into opportunities for him to research, study, examine himself.  
He comes to the conclusion he can’t be trusted until he understands what’s going on in his head, until he understands why the shadows, those deep voices dragging him down further into this hell, are there.

People start leaving, and as much as Newton worries, Hermann doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon. Many get job offers outside PPDC, and he’s one of them. A rising company called Shao Industries offers him a full time job, away from PPDC, away from what has been his reality for ten whole years. It might be better for him to stay away from Hermann until he understands what’s wrong, so he accepts the job.  
It’s going to be fun, it’s going to be refreshing, and probably heartbreaking too.  
Of course he tells himself that it’s not an end, it’s just a temporary solution to a temporary problem. He doesn’t want to think about the last time he sees his room in the PPDC quarters, nor he wants to see his half of the lab empty, cleaned from the kaiju entrails and free from all of his belongings. Of course he has to say goodbye to Hermann, but he reminds himself constantly, or at least he tries, they’ll see each other again, maybe in Germany, maybe he’ll come back to visit him or maybe Hermann’ll come to his place for a lovely dinner, just the two of them.

Newton leaves the PPDC base in favour of Shao Industries, with a mixture of relief and melancholy swimming in his ocean of thoughts. He thinks he’s better the first few days at his new job, the voices in his head are softer, even less menacing, he doesn’t feel like the world might end once again. Newt feels as if his choice was a good choice, even though he feels his heart flutter whenever he receives a text message, hoping it’s Hermann’s, but it’s not and he tells himself he definitely needs to text him and invite him over.  
Well, he ends up texting him his second evening in Shangai, as he’s spread all over his new couch with a book for learning chinese open on his lap. They chat for a while, and the moment Newt feels happy because Hermann told a _joke_ , which is not even funny, but it’s a _**joke**_ , and it was written by Hermann _Uptight_ Gottlieb ( it’s a miracle, trust me ), his head throbs painfully, almost cutting his breath off.  
He wobbles to the bathroom and sees his reflection blur every second more, but he spots something wrong with his eye, his nose is bleeding, and that’s all he sees before fainting.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, a small puddle of blood that came from his nose stains the carpet, and his eye burns like crazy. He’d already researched for the side effects of the drift, even though drifting with humans and drifting with a kaiju are two entirely separate things, the symptoms aren’t supposed to show so late after the drifts. There must be something else that has him in this misery, and he knows it has to do with his drift with the kaiju brain.  
The following day he considers wearing an eyepatch to cover his bloody eye, and he chuckles at the thought that he'd look exactly like Hannibal Chau if he just weren't so handsome and a lightbulb explodes in his head.

 _Drifting is a two way street-_  Hannibal reminds him, his deep voice echoing in Newton's head – _and if you can see and feel them they can see and feel you_.

He should've realised this sooner, but somehow he hadn't thought, in that hyperactive brain of his, that the connection could still be active. Those voices, what he felt lingering in every dark corner, they were there all the time, they were in him. It makes sense, Newton is positive he's right, but now that he knows what's troubling him, the precursors know he's now aware of their presence.

This is the moment where he should seek help, but in fact, he doesn't.

Now that he knows what the problem is, he just needs to find a solution, and then everything will be alright. In order to motivate himself, he tries to fix what could seem like a reward: Newt tells himself that when he manages to get rid of those unwanted guests, he'll try to tell Hermann how he feels about him. Maybe he won't tell him about the pillow-humping parts, but he just might hint about a dinner date.  
_A date, a date, a date._  
The word seems odd in his head, but he won't let it distract him from his primary objective: getting rid of the _assholes_ hijacking his brain.

 

He has his good days and his bad days, but he keeps trying, fighting back the thoughts that slither in his head and bite hard onto him.

On the good days, he comes home exhausted, moody, extremely snappy at everyone who dares call him after workhours and once he catches himself staring at the city lights and thinking about how _pretty_ it would've been if all those insects skittering around the streets died, if everything burned to the ground, if everything on that insignificant planet died in a fire, and he feels terrified.  
It's not him, he's not that person, and he'll never allow himself to become the pawn of the precursors.

On the bad days, he wakes up with his limbs aching, sees his tattoos moving and the images of kaiju actually biting and tearing his skin apart. He covers them up and suddenly he's at work and he's yelling nonsense at his subordinates, screaming about how useless they are and maybe they should be all replaced by machines. He blacks out for entire hours and finds out he hasn't passed out, but he was awake and active, just that he wasn't in control of himself. _They were._  
The thought of what they could make him do, in his temporary absence, scares him to death.  
He has thoughts about how terrible he is, about how Hermann would absolutely hate him if he confessed his attraction, about the huge disappointment he grew up to be. He can't control his thoughts, but he can feel them forming in his mind, he can feel the pure hatred and rage in the precursors that have him crying in his bed every night.

He doesn't want to fall back asleep anymore, he's scared they might take over while he sleeps and he doesn't trust himself.

He should call Hermann, he wants to call Hermann and beg him to come help him, he wants Hermann to hold him and just give him the control he needs over himself, but the moment he reaches for his phone his head throbs harder, his hands shake, his veins fill up with liquid fire and it hurts more than anything he ever experienced in his life.

Somehow he's spent a year away, a year far from Hermann and who knows how many months he passed without being able to contact the man he loves.  
The days are hard to get through. It's even harder to find a moment to think about what to do to free himself from the sharp claws of the precursors. He isn't sure when he began thinking about it, but maybe, just maybe, if he drifts with another kaiju brain he can actually do something against the precursors, fight them in some way, force them to leave him alone and let him be happy like he deserves.

He's gone beyond the limit of exhaustion. In order not to fall asleep he consumes more caffeine than humanly possible, in order to function and ease the unbearable noise always buzzing in the back of his head he pours _whiskey_ in his coffee.

How he's come this far, he has no idea, but he knows he has to hold onto the shrinking hope one day he'll be free, one day he'll ask Hermann out on that damn dinner date, even if it's the last thing he ever does.

He's sitting at his desk, looking through the most boring pile of papers he's ever seen in his life, and he feels the most impellent need to write something to Hermann, even if he knows he won't be able to send it to him, the precursors won't let him exactly like they'd give him seizures whenever he wanted to text the other scientist.  
On the back of a document he scribbles out:

_Hermann, I miss you too much ~~it hurts~~ to put it into words, ~~if~~ when all of this is over, dinner at my p lace ? It'd make me so hap py, you don't even k now pal ? ??? neW t _

He doesn't even notice the mistakes, he doesn't care about them anyway. When he'll feel better, when he's okay, he'll send it. Because he'll get better, and he will defeat them.

It's been one year and a half since the closure of the breach.  
  
It's been at least ten months since his last contact with Hermann, and Newton doesn't remember what he did for a whole week. He's lost so much weight he barely recognises himself in the mirror, and he's so tired he feels like passing out every minute more.  
Most importantly, he's been staring at a kaiju brain for at least a few hours now, contemplating the possibility to drift with it and connect his mind directly to the precursors.  
He’s fed up, he’s irrationally filled with anger and he can’t tell where his rage ends and where their wrath begins.  
He’s losing contact with himself, or worse, he’s not himself anymore and he can’t stand it.

He goes home and begins planning how to steal and then drift with the kaiju brain, one of the few left on the planet and the one that Shao Industries is using to work on pilotless jaegers.

There is little left of him, but he still manages to realise a smart plan, because only Newton Geiszler can have his brain hijacked by aliens and come up with decent thoughs— he’s still a smart guy.  
A week later the kaiju brain is in his apartment, the gloomy greenish glow of the tank makes his dishelved bed look like a restless sea. Newton stands in front of it, arms crossed on his chest and tattoos flashing, splotches of colour bursting out of his skin. His shadow stretches over the expensive rough he doesn't remember buying.

He has to do anything in his power to get rid of them. He doesn't feel like himself at all, a _guest_ in his body, a _stranger_ in his own head as he feels the precursors pulling his strings.

There's little in his mind as he places the equipment on his head, he's been trying to keep his thoughts, their thoughts to a bare minimum, even though he struggles with the stream of emotions going through him.  
The drift hadn't killed him the first time, but it led him to this and he wasn't really sure this was better than death.

He’s ready to push the button that will have him connected to the precursors, and there’s two ways this could go, one ends with a date, and the other with world destruction.  
Before going in, he takes his wallet and slides a small polaroid photo out of its folds. The day they cancelled apocalypse, Hermann and Newton side by side, _**'** **rockstars'**_ written on it in big characters. He held onto that small memory tightly, carefully analysing Hermann’s features, his smile, the way he bent his head, his eyes, his hair— everything that was _his_ , everything that he loved with every single part of himself, Newton’s _true_ self was the one that melted at the sight of Hermann’s smile.

 

He hopes to see it again one day, maybe over dinner at his place.


	2. soda and silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermann isn't having the best time without Newton around. He tries to avoid the empty silence by writing letters and listening to the clash, but he ends up with a bleeding heart and self induced headaches.

 

Hermann liked silence.

It helped him focus and get things done, it soothed his poor mind after he spent entire days overworking it, silence lulled him into sleep. He always could think more clearly with silence, it was like he could see the equations he thought of, it just was _easier_  than with some music to distract him or, as Newton called it, _'background music to help him focus'_.  
He barely understood what went on in the other scientist's head before they drifted, but now he can feel the constant stream of thoughts, confused, brilliant and amazingly idiotic all at once.  
Newton is for sure a rare specimen of a human being.

 

When the nightmares come, Hermann is confused.  
Of course he's scared, the kaiju and the precursors in his dreams are terrifying, but what's weird about some dreams is that he sees _himself_ being hurt and has the thoughts such as  _'don't hurt him, take me instead'_.  
It doesn't take long for him to figure out that sometimes he sees Newton's dreams instead of his own, as if he switched channels on a common television. The explanation to the thoughts he feels forming in his head is that, well, Newton cares about him in the same way Hermann does, but neither of them dares to express the affection towards the other.  
It's not like after so many disagreements and fights he could go to him and tell him _'hey, I enjoy your company, Newton, we should definitely meet more often after work hours and maybe go grab a drink.'_  
He bets Newton'd love that, he'd have material for his derogatory jokes for months.

  
  
  
One day he wakes up to a sharp pain in his chest, tears streaming down his cheeks and a knot in his throat.  
He has absolutely no idea why it's happening, but he breaks down crying in the silence of his quarters, grasping at his own chest as if it could ease the pain.  
Hermann slowly shakes the haziness off his thoughts with trembling breaths and tries only for a while to gather himself, miserably failing as he hides his face between his knees. It’s not as if what he just dreamt could possibly have him so distressed he burst into tears, since he saw his own wedding. He was marrying a woman whose name and face are unknown to him; all he remembers clearly is Newton by his side, smiling softly and looking extremely moved. He perhaps may have been the one crying in his dream, but the feelings he’s experiencing don’t match how moved Newton was in his dream, at all. He should be feeling happy, not distressed and in pain, if anything at all.  
He lets the hiccups and tears flow until they die down, then reaches for his phone.  
He wonders if that sudden wave of emotions is caused by the ghost drift between him and Newton, and therefore if he felt the same.

 

 

_>    [2: 02 am] Newton, is everything alright?_

 

His phone buzzes even before he sets it back down on the nightstand.

 

 

_> [2: 02 am] dude are you awake too_

  
_> [2: 03 am] I jsut had the weirdest dream_

  
_> [2: 03 am] you were getting married and I was your best man_

  
_> [2: 05 am] where'd you find a girl willing to stand you for the rest of her life?_

 

He supposes that's an affirmative answer to his question. He's alright.

 

_> [2: 08 am] I assure you I am not getting married any time soon_

  
_> [2: 12 am] Goodnight, Newton._

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
After a while, it seem to get better.  
He has a few nightmares every once in a while, but he can tolerate them as long as they do not interfere with his work.  
Every day he walks into the lab he still shares with Newton and works on equations, algorithms, everything that can help the world after the disastrous impact of multiple kaiju attacks over the span of ten years.  
  
Newton, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be as productive and excited over his kaiju samples, and Hermann blames the lack of possibilities the kaiju’d be back, now that the hivemind controlling them has been defeated.  
Seeing him paler, thinner and quieter than usual is weird. He questions his habits, reminds him that even though he might not feel hungry, he should eat and drink to keep himself hydrated.  
He waits for snarky remarks, because _yes, Hermann, he’s been drinking far too much because he knows how to have fun, unlike someone else_ — but they never come.  
He smiles tiredly and says he’ll take a break to eat something as soon as he’s done.

Hermann is worried, although he doesn’t want to cause more of ruckus about what could be simple exhaustion, or Newton’s annoyance towards him. Would Newton tell him if he had any sort of trouble with him— or at all? Are they at that point in their so called friendship where they can comfort each other over their problems?

He spends so much time thinking about what to do, how to handle the fact he’s actually interested in knowing how Newton is feeling, that eventually Newton just leaves.

 

Well, of course Newton doesn’t _just leave_ , without a word, but one morning he knocks on his door, a duffle bag at his feet and a hint of tears in his eyes.

  

«I’ve got a new job, man! they want me to move to shanghai, though. I guess this’ll be the last time I wake you up with my annoying knocking in a while.»

Newton hesitates, and for a second he looks as if he wants to stand on his toes and hug Hermann. Hermann, sleepy and confused, leans in and catches the smaller man in a soft embrace. He knows things will change between them, as well as in PPDC, but he doesn’t want to give a damn about all that _bullshit_.  

«At last, they decided to listen to my complaints just now I was beginning to stand you, Newton. I bet you’ll find someone else to annoy while you’re away.»

Newton wraps his arms around Hermann and holds him tight, then, too soon, moves away and flashes him a smirk.

«I’ll find a way to still annoy you too! Distance doesn’t mean I can’t manage to get under your skin.»

The mathematician sighs, with fake exasperation at the other man, then forces himself to close the door as soon as Newton leaves.

  

  
Hermann is an intelligent man. He’s studied everything there was until he had to come up with new fields of study himself, he was the major expert in the kaiju-related appearance frequency theory, but he can’t figure out the reason the days alone in the lab feel like months.

To be honest, he is well aware of the reason, but he doesn’t understand how, _why_ Newton’s absence, the lack of an annoying background noise could displease him this much. The subjectivity of time passing is a phenomenon that he has read about, of course, and like everyone else he experienced it on his own skin: of course the days feel like months, years even, when he’s alone and with little to do, Hermann believes he should probably get busier to mimic the feeling of having Newton filling his days with his chatter and loud, outdated _‘rock’_.

After what seems like ten months, but is, in fact, about three days from Newton’s arrival in Shanghai, he hears from him.  
It’s not a deep conversation, nothing special, but it makes him feel at ease to know the other took the time to send him a message.

 

 _> [9:31 pm] Herms! you up?_  
  
_> [9:32 pm] texts feel weird with you. letters are so outdated but they’re still our thing, right?_

Hermann involuntarily reacts with a smile to the thought of exchanging letters.

  

 _> [9:35 pm] I’m awake, yes. Text messages are quicker, though, don’t you think so? Would you rather wait days for me to answer your rants about the latest godzilla film?  
_  
_> [9:37 pm] Anyhow, have you settled yourself in your new apartment in Shanghai?_

 

It’d never been like this, with their relationship, which wasn’t of course **romantic** , it was a friendship, but Hermann feels himself worried for the other scientist in a way he’d never been.  
He cares for Newton, he always has, but it’s different now, in a way he can’t fully comprehend.  
He wants more from him, he wants to be with him, physically, although this impelling need couldn’t have come in a worse moment.

 

 _> [9:41 pm] didn’t say I minded texting you! just feeling kinda nostalgic of the good ol’ days that’s all. don’t get me started on godzilla, you know I can write about it for pages and pages!  
_  
_> [9:41 pm] yeah, I moved two days ago, it’s kinda empty but it’s okay I guess_

 

Hermann imagines Newt. Alone, sitting in a weird position over a second-hand couch, his phone in one hand and the computer on his lap, watching a monster movie of some sort, maybe even eating handfuls of popcorn and not even bothering to clean his hands as he types over the phone.  
The more Hermann thinks about it, the more he feels close to him, almost as if he were on the other end of the couch, peeking at him from behind his book.  
Why does it feel normal for Hermann to imagine himself beside Newton, sharing an apartment? Of course such thing wouldn't be acceptable for two grown men, two adult friends.  
Or maybe it would, because society doesn't even condemn homosexuality anymore, it's only the fact people would think Newton and him could be _engaged_ in such ways, it's weird, it's not unflattering, it's just odd to think of himself and Newton as a couple.

He wants to talk to Newton about the weird idea he had.

He doesn't.

  

 _> [9:49 pm] The good ol days when our mommas sang us to sleep and now we're stressed out?_  
  
_> [9:51pm] I'm sorry, it was a terrible joke. Especially because the world is still waiting for Twenty One Pilot's fourth album._

 

Hermann wonders if he's feeling nervous because he's afraid Newton won't like the joke or because he thought about what kissing Newton could feel like.

He looks at his smartphone, the name in big letters over the chat, Newton Geiszler.  
He sees the fact he's typing, and he's typing, and he's typing.

Then he's not.

His excitement flickers and then dies like a flame on a match.

The screen turns dark and Hermann wonders what's happening. There are rational answers to the reason Newton stopped typing. He could be busy with whatever he is doing, but of course a small part of Hermann, the one he tries desperately to keep at bay all the time, is nagging him, telling him it's his fault because he's so embarrassing to talk to. He's lame.

He puts the phone away, softly sighs into the pillow and turns in his bed. He knows it'll be hard to sleep with regretful thoughts swimming around in his head like those three kaiju over the breach.

His heart beats with excitement for far too long, even after all the feelings from the short chat with Newton have faded into a grey void of numbness.

 

  
The following weeks, Hermann spends way too much time checking his phone instead of neglecting it like he always does in favour of looking at a computer screen or a blackboard.  
It’s not as if there’s any pressure on him to come up with anything since he’s the only member of K-Science that hasn’t left, and there isn’t exactly much left to study.  
  
All he does is try to make himself useful by fixing programs, writing equations into notebooks and check his phone, then look at the other side of the room, sigh, check his phone again, open up a file about kaiju biology and read it all in one go, check his phone again.  
Sometimes he sips on some tea, sometimes he eats something sweet, and he always checks his phone.

It’s become frustrating to be in such a big space by himself, and ever since the J-Tech department asked him to use the lab, Hermann has been considering leaving PPDC.  
He has, in fact, received other job offers, but he doesn’t want to depart from the Hong Kong Shatterdome in case anything happens.

He eventually ends up moving from the huge lab to a smaller room that no one used, where he could work by himself in peace.

A few months go by, and Hermann tells himself he’s _okay_. He has a good job, an apartment and there are people who sometimes send him mail to thank him for his work during the kaiju war.

He can only imagine how much mail Newton receives, since he’s a _rockstar_ of social media, or so he used to say.  
Hermann can’t find him anywhere online, although.

 

One day he receives a text, from Newton.  
 

_> [12:02 pm] Herman n! sorry. work got in the way. miss u dude_

  
He knows he should be mad, he knows he should feel anger towards the one who probably forgot to answer his text and then proceeded with his life as if they hadn’t spent ten years of their life working together, as if they hadn’t known each other since they were in their twenties.

He’s not angry, he’s relieved Newton wrote first, because he was just about to do it himself.  
 

_> [12:03 pm]It’s alright. When is a good time to talk?_

Again, Newton reads the text, doesn’t answer.  
Hermann feels stupid for trying.

 

He misses Newton, as well, but of course he won’t say it.

Hermann didn’t want to give in to the pressure of waiting for an answer, but after three months, all he wants to do is call the other man and ask why he’d stop talking to him like he didn’t matter at all.  
He feels as if he barely even mattered for the other man, meanwhile Newton, to him, **was** a close friend, someone he **trusted**.

  
It’s betrayal and anger and who knows what else that lead him to make the number and call the other man.

Newton answers the call, but there is a sound he makes on the other side of the phone that just isn’t _**right**_.  
He clears his throat. 

« Newton, hello, I’m s— Hermann. Gottlieb. From PPDC. »

He hears Newton chuckle, and somehow it makes him feel a little bit better, makes the knot in his stomach ease its hold. 

« Hermaaan! Of course, of course! I know who you are, man! How are you? »

Hermann sighs, loudly.

« I’m alright, Newton. I’ve just— been wondering about the reason our correspondence has been... _lacking_. I know you’re busy with your new job, I just wanted to know if I did anything that could’ve made it harder... for you to want to contact me. »

« What’re you talking about, Herms! It’s nothing like that! _**We**_ , well, I was working on a _small_ project of my own and now that’s finally been taken care of, I’ll have a bit more time, hopefully. Herm- hermann, I— am... am... »

Newton’s voice begins twisting in a weird way in the middle of the last sentence, and it doesn’t sound human at one point, but he somehow gains control back on himself.

« I am- I’d be glad to have you over for dinner. You know, Alice is dying to meet you. »

If on the one hand Hermann is relieved to know there is nothing he did to make Newton stop texting him, although on the other hand his heart sinks a little bit in his chest at the mention of Alice. From the way he talks about her, Alice seems to be Newton’s girlfriend, _his lover_. 

« Ah, yes, thank you Newton. I’ll happily join you and Alice for dinner someday. I’ll leave you to your work, now, you’ll surely be very busy. Have a good evening, Newton.»

  
Newton mutters a soft _bye_ and the call ends.

Hermann doesn't really know what to think. He knows he shouldn't be upset, he should be happy for Newton like a good friend would be, but he's not and it's not only bothersome to him, but somehow a bit disheartening: although he doesn't really want to admit it to himself, it feels as if he's the only one who cares about their relationship, because now that Newton has left and Alice is by his side— why would he want to talk to Hermann? to get yelled at, again?

Hermann wishes he’d been gentler with Newton, and told him he actually cared, he just thought, hoped Newton could see past his harshness, but perhaps it was too much to ask of him.

He feels forgotten.

 

* * *

 

 

  
Years pass slowly. Hermann focuses on work, makes some progress, not as much as he'd like to, but it's something. There's never much to say, he's going on with what's left of his life, he's dragging along with himself the few things that he still holds close. Numbers are there with him, a comfort for him to fall back onto when nothing else works.  
It's useless to say, he feels lonely, but he won't admit it to himself, or to anyone else.  
It's a quiet life, where no kaiju or kaiju groupies dare interrupt his routine, but the absence of those elements isn't a sign he's forgotten about them. It's the opposite, actually.  
Hermann often finds himself wondering, lingering onto memories of the older, happier times.

The first time he saw a picture of Newton, for example.

He'd imagined him to be _different_ , he'd imagined someone looking fairly average, but instead he saw _**Newton**_ , a small, young man, covered in tattoos, who **_of course_** , wore a tacky bright neon shirt that shamelessly publicised Godzilla.  
From the moment he saw that picture he asked himself why he ever _dared_ imagine him as a common man.  
He was the same, brilliant, annoying young man when they met in person for the first time, in addition he had a bit of a stubble and a whole lot of an attitude.

He remembers Newton's music, he remembers complaining about Iggy Pop blaring loudly in the lab at one in the morning while he was trying to finish some work.

Hermann remembers how it was to spend time with Newton and misses him dearly. That's the reason he writes to him sometimes, when even numbers can't do the trick, when he feels as if there's no reason left for him to go on. Therefore he remembers, lives a bit in his past, but he's not to blame if his present is so bleak. Or maybe he is, since he's saved the world from kaiju.

Sometimes he has the weird idea he should send those letters he wrote, but he pushes it back, just like he does with everything that he feels whenever he thinks about Newton because it's just **useless**.  
It's comforting to live in the past, but it doesn't just evoke good feelings, it also brings back the negative parts such as the constant fear of humanity being wiped out from Earth. It's only natural for him to push everything back– until it becomes harder, and he feels the weight of all the emotions every time he desperately pushes them back, and they become heavier month after month, year after year.

 

Three years and six months after the end of the kaiju war, Hermann decides that _fuck it_ , he's going to start sending letters to Newton, to ease his pain, even if he's writing to someone who will not answer.

 

 _My dearest Newton,_ — Hermann writes one night, one early morning, he’s not sure anymore.  
_I sincerely hope you’re well. I don’t exactly intend this to sound as tragic as it does, but I am not well._  
_There’s something I was supposed to tell you a long time ago, which for some reason I never had the chance, the will, the guts as you’d say, to confess. Now, I’m not a murderer, and I know I ‘killed your mood’ countless times but I believe that doesn’t really count as homicide, this isn’t that kind of confession._

Now, Hermann isn’t sure if he’s even allowed to joke around before getting to write the worse part. He decides to keep the buffoonery in the letter just because he’s quite sure Newton won’t read it.  
If he read them he’d reply, maybe just telling him to go to hell, but he’d answer one of his letters.

 _I know how this sounds, Newton, and I’ll tell you beforehand that I’m sorry and I never intended for things to go as they did. I never wanted to let you go, I would have tried to convince you to stay in PPDC if I only had been able to face my feelings earlier._  
_I have feelings for you, Newton._  
_Now, you could go off and tell everyone that Hermann Gottlieb is in love, and I wouldn’t care, because everything I care about is you._  
_I haven’t told you, and I probably will not tell you if we see each other again, because I’m scared you won’t like me back. I’m not sure if it’s the thought I’ll never see you again, or the fact that there’s no logical reason for you to like me back that scares me the most. Terrifies me, almost as much, probably even more than the kaiju. I’m not supposed to say it, but sometimes I wish those dreadful monsters were still here so we could work together, so that I could see you. It’s a horrible and selfish thought of a loveless egoistical man._

 

Hermann tears up, gets angry at himself and crumples the letter up. He throws it on his desk as he leaves for the lab and drowns himself in work. For a few days, he doesn’t even leave the lab and sleeps at his desk. He falls asleep looking at the polaroid of him and Newton, embracing after the apocalypse was cancelled. It’s terribly romantic and sad at the same time to glance at that picture so often, but Hermann can’t really help himself. He wants to feel better.

Hermann Gottlieb is in love.

Hermann is a good man, who's gone a little off his rails for another man who is nowhere to be seen in his life and he probably won't be seen, ever again.

 

 

He sometimes sees Newton on the news, observes the suits he wears, even noticed he'd stopped wearing glasses and just acts as if he's worth a million dollars, which _he is_ , but he never really acted on it.  
However, even though he doesn't completely recognise the man who presented himself as Doctor Newton Geiszler, not just Newt, he still liked to take a picture and then save it for later times, for when he wanted to take on frustration by literally jerking off all night. It wasn't even embarrassing anymore to think about Newton like that, it was just something he seldom did when he saw a picture, something that had Hermann thinking of him so much he popped a boner.

 

There is a lot that could be said about Hermann and his suffering, thousand and thousand of pages focusing on how lonely he feels, how cold it is to spend the night by himself, how exhausting it feels to think about Newton all day knowing he can't be with him, how dull his life has become even though he's doing the right thing researching for humanity's sake.  
Hermann finds his comfort in the ghost drift between him and Newton, he spends too much time working, too little time sleeping and carries the polaroid picture with him at all times.  
That's become his life, and it's normality to him.

 

There is no more normality, there's nothing left. Everything is shattered, the jaegers are shattered, Earth is left picking up the pieces of another kaiju attack, but this time humanity has someone to blame: Newton Geiszler.  
The calamity of a triple kaiju event, although, doesn't rest on Newton's shoulders alone. He was forced to work under the precursors' influence, they'd taken full control of him. It wasn't Newton, it wasn't the man he loved, it was a monster– there was little left of Newton.

Hermann's heart still beats for him, but perhaps it's time he realises the man he fell in love with is nothing but a memory like most tell him, because _'Newton Geiszler doesn't exist anymore, and it's very likely he's been erased from his body years ago'._

Therefore it comes the time for Hermann to make a choice: he either holds onto the fragment of hope that Newton will fight his way out of the precursors' grasp, or he gives up and resigns to the fact the man he once loved is dead.  


« Hermann! Herms, my man! Didn’t think you’d be visiting me so soon! »  


Someone says, using Newt’s voice, his lips.

Hermann doesn’t want the thought to get into his head.  


«Let me speak to Newt.»

«He’s not exactly available right now. Leave a message?»

«Listen, you disgusting creatures, you lost your war! There’s nothing else you could possibly want from him anymore. You must set him free.»

«His mind is brilliant, Hermann, he’s been thinking of so many ways he could escape this poor excuse of a prison and get back to his dear Alice, you see, he needs us.»  


Hermann’s lips twist in a scowl and his knuckles turn white as he holds tightly onto his cane.

   
«He doesn’t need you, or Alice. You need him. But I won’t let you have him hostage any longer.»

  
«Oh Hermann, always so naive and foolish.»  


This time Hermann scoffs, but doesn’t answer, ignores the sly grim on Newton’s blood stained lips. He approaches the man, avoiding his eyes, instead focusing on the way his chest still rose then sunk as he exhaled.

He looks at him for a while, then decides he should leave before his heart clenches his chest so tight it cuts his breath off.

He turns around, takes a few steps towards the reinforced door and dares to peek at Newton from over his shoulder.

He’s alive, somewhere deep inside of him, Hermann is aware that Newton is still alive and he feels the connection to him fizzle in the back of his mind like carbon dioxide in soda.

 _Oh come on_ , he thinks, _you have nothing better to think about than soda?_

   
«I really like soda, okay? ‘s not as if these guys ever let me have some.»

   
It’s a strained wheeze, and Hermann believes his own mind made it up, until he sees his smile. It's Newton's, Hermann would be able to distinguish it in a million others. He hurries to his side, looks at him for half a second before feeling tears sting his eyes.  
 

«It's you.»

 

* * *

  
It takes _a while_.

Months, actually, but once they make sure that Hermann's presence not only weakens the precursors' hold onto Newton's mind but it also helps both parties stay calm, everything goes downhill for the evil alien masterminds controlling Newt.

No one saw it coming, no one was optimistic enough to think Hermann and Newton deserved a happy ending after almost two decades of unspoken feelings towards each other.

It's not easy, no one ever thought it would be, because no one except for Hermann ever believed Newton could actually be freed.

What else is not easy? Cooking for two, trying to make both yours and your partner's taste mingle together in one meal.

They both sit in silence, one in front of the other, their food steaming and it's hard for their gaze to part from the other's but they manage. Hadn't it been for Newton's beloved sugar filled soda sizzling and popping, there would have been silence in the room, and Hermann would have been fine with it because there's finally nothing left unspoken between them.  
  
Hermann likes silence, but then he looks at Newt and simply feels and remembers how loud, obnoxious, wonderful and brilliant he is and he thinks that he'd rather spend his life, or whatever time he has left, filling his days with all the noise Newton can make than pass another minute in silence.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to val and trinity for helping me out!


End file.
